Homewrecker

02 - 𝓻𝓲𝓹𝓹𝓮𝓭

It was like a wedge of black cotton, churning violently against the ground through trees and debris, with dust and rain bordered around it. The wind sounded like it was whistling as things from around the trailer park started to shift—broken tree limbs, trash cans, Kingston's lawn chair—and drift along the gravel. It was so loud, like a continuous thundering roar, and everything was snapping or banging against metal, clang after clang. Then cold was crashing against my bare ankles, crashing against my arms, and hail was shattering on the gravel, bouncing off the roofs of the trailer houses around us and denting them. Somewhere, in the midst of it all, a windshield smashed.

"Mom!"

Kingston still had one of his hands around my elbow, pulling me back away from the trailer and through the grass between trailer homes, although I wasn't entirely sure if this was him or the wind doing this. "Bronwyn, we can't stay here! That's coming right for us."

"It's not moving!" I shouted, even though I could tell that it was, twisting and rotating from the dark clouds that lingered so impossibly close to us on the ground. But it wasn't turning in either direction, almost like it was rooted in place, maybe moving slowly enough that I could run back into the trailer and wake up my mom before it hit the park.

I tried to wriggle out from his grasp when he latched his other hand around me, grabbing my waist, and I looked back over at him just before his glasses were blown from his face. "I have to go get my mom!"

He never responded to this as he dodged the hail falling around us, some landing on our shoulders or our backs, both of us trying to duck our heads. My shoes were dragging against the wet grass as he dragged me in between the trailers and onto the road leading into the park, one I had just walked down a few minutes earlier.

Now the road signs were bent or missing, rainwater overflowing in the potholes, and tree branches were everywhere, severed and still flying down the road. A car was overturned, crumpled into a pile of metal and glass, on the ditch near the Shiloh Home Park sign at the turn. Kingston pulled me further down the street until through the heavy rainfall I was able to make out the neon gas prices sign at the gas station.

I pushed him away from me and ran through the flooding in the parking lot to the front doors, yanking one of them open. Inside, most of the lights were out, and people were crowding the aisle with the chips and trail mixes, trying to look out the window without getting too close. I was already getting my phone out when Kingston followed in behind me, letting out a breath as he shook out his clothes.

The clerk, a middle-aged woman named Sandy that I sort of knew—in whatever way you know the clerk who checks out your overpriced snacks and emergency tampons at the only store within walking distance—was still behind the counter, squinting through the windows, drenched in rain. "It looks really bad out there," she noted, then her eyes widened. "Wait, is that hail? Shoot, my car's out there!"

I dialed my mom's cell number, pressing my phone to my ear. "There's a tornado outside."

"It was about to hit the trailer park," Kingston added, lifting the hem of his shirt to wipe down his face.

"A tornado?" Sandy walked closer to the window as the dial tone echoed through the speaker before I heard my mother's voicemail message on the other end, telling me she wasn't sorry she missed me, she was probably ignoring the call on purpose, but sure, leave a message anyway. My heart was racing as I looked over at Sandy, who was trying to wipe down the wrong side of the window to see outside. "Are you sure?"

"Probably just a funnel," someone shouted from the chip aisle. "We don't get tornadoes around here."

"Well, you got one right now!" I yelled as I redialed my mom's number but this time, it told me my call could not be completed until I was within range of service. Then something slammed against one of the walls of the gas station, the glass on one of the windows beginning to splinter. Through it, and the rain pelting down against it, the gas station sign that led us here let out a groan—partially drowned out by the wind and hail beating against the store—before collapsing onto one of the cars parked outside.